Once Again I Am Grateful My Brothers...

Once again I am grateful, my brothers and sisters, for the opportunity of attending a general conference. ¶

These meetings are indeed stimulating, and they are very faith-promoting. I am always built up a great deal by my attendance here, and I am sure that you are, likewise. ¶

I have been deeply touched today by the remarks that have been made by the various speakers. I would like to join with some of them in making an appeal on behalf of the young people of the Church that the parents do all they can to build faith in the hearts of their children. I am sure that all of us, as parents, love our children. I am sure that we desire that they may have the best in life. But I also know that many parents by their daily lives, by their daily habits actually undermine the faith of their own children and take from them the incentive to live the gospel of Christ. ¶

One time, when the Savior was in mortality and the throngs brought their little children to him seeking a blessing, and the disciples attempted to protect the Savior and prevent the children from coming, he said, ¶

Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. (Mark 10:14.) ¶

As I see some parents living so carelessly and setting examples of disobedience to their own children, actually destroying their children's faith by their own irreligion, I can almost hear the Savior speaking to those parents, saying, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. ¶

I remember so well a good sister coming to my office one day. She sat at my desk in tears and kept saying over and over to herself, "Why should this happen to me? Why should this happen to me?" When she was able to compose herself, she told me about her boy who was in jail, having committed a serious crime. And she said again, "Why should this ever happen to me?" ¶

The boy had committed his crime under the influence of alcohol. ¶

When I found out more about this family, I learned that this was the case: ¶

The father and mother used to argue a good deal over the breakfast table. The mother loved her cup of coffee. She simply had to have her cup of coffee. ¶

The father always talked with mother about it, asked her to live the Word of Wisdom, asked her to drink something else for breakfast, and always mother would say, "You can't tell me that a cup of coffee will ever keep me out of heaven. You can't tell me that the Lord is going to be so narrow-minded that he will keep me out of heaven when I go to Church regularly, just because I drink a cup of coffee." ¶

Always she justified herself in breaking that part of the Word of Wisdom. ¶

There was sitting at that breakfast table, a little boy. That little boy listened to the conversation between father and mother, and as the mother defended her infraction of the Word of Wisdom, as the mother said that the cup of coffee would not matter and the Word of Wisdom really did not matter, either, that little boy believed his mother. ¶

When he got a little older, he still believed his mother. When he started going with boys who smoked, he began to smoke. His mother had taught him that the Word of Wisdom really did not matter. "If it did not matter to Mother, if it would not stand in the way of her salvation, why should it matter to me? How can it keep me out of heaven, if it does not keep Mother out of heaven?" he would say to himself as he also justified his actions. ¶

And so as the mother taught him to break the Word of Wisdom, he took up the habit of smoking. When he went to college and joined a certain fraternity where drinking was the custom, he began to drink. One night under the influence of liquor he committed a serious crime and went to jail. And now the mother sat at my desk, weeping and saying: "Why should this ever happen to me?" ¶

There is another couple. They also talk over the breakfast table, and over the dinner table, and by their conversation they also teach their children certain things. Mother and father see eye to eye in this family. They agree perfectly, and they talk over the things on which they agree as they sit there at dinner or breakfast. And do you know what the principal topic of conversation is? The bishop. How they despise the bishop! How they could tear him limb from limb! Everything the bishop does is wrong. Why, nothing in the world that bishop does could possibly be right. ¶

That father and mother sit there picking at the bishop and pulling him apart, and depreciating him, and doing all they can to make each other feel that the bishop is a most unworthy representative of the Church. ¶

Did it hurt the bishop? The bishop went right on doing a fine job in the ward. But somebody was hurt. There was a little boy in that family, also. ¶

Whom did he believe? He believed Father and Mother. He had no reason to disbelieve them. They were his ideals. They were the law in that family. And when they, who laid down the law, constantly taught that boy by their own conversation to have no regard for the bishop, no regard for anything that the bishop did, they taught the boy to disregard everything for which a bishop stands. ¶

That boy is now a grown young man. ¶

He does nothing in the Church. He has no respect for the Church, no respect for his bishop, nor for the men who installed the bishop. ¶

Who is responsible? ¶

Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. ¶

I have a friend who has a son, and every Sunday this friend goes out fishing or hunting. He is a member of the Church. He thinks he is a pretty good member of the Church, except that he does not observe the Sabbath. He does not pay his tithing. He does not observe the Word of Wisdom. But if you ask him, he is a good member of the Church. ¶

He always used to send his little boy to Sunday School and to priesthood meeting. But when the little boy got old enough to realize what the father was doing and to realize what a strong interest there is out there on the stream with a rod in your hand, he wanted to go with his dad. The dad at first protested, not so much because he did not want the boy to stay away from Church, but because he thought the boy would be pretty much in the way. ¶

Nevertheless, the boy continued to ask to go with the dad, and finally he did. ¶

Then, every Sunday that father gave that son firsthand lessons in how to violate the Sabbath day, firsthand lessons in how to stay away from meeting, how to choose fishing on Sunday instead of going to Church. ¶

What chance did the boy have of becoming converted to the gospel when the father was teaching the son how to break the law of God? ¶

"Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not" by continuing in any bad habits that you have, "forbid them not" by teaching them violation of the commandments, "forbid them not" by setting the wrong kind of example, "for of such is the kingdom of God." ¶

The Savior said something else: ¶

Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (Matt. 5:19.) ¶

The Lord also said at another time: ¶

Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh! (Matt. 18:7.) ¶

I believe that one of our great Americans is J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. At one time, Mr. Hoover talked about the juvenile delinquency problem, and, among other things, he said this: "Our youthful delinquency is a problem which strikes into practically every home in America. It is something to which every parent should give the deepest consideration, because the responsibility for youthful law infraction today lies more on the doorstep of the adult than it does on that of the youth. It exists largely because of a lack of discipline. ¶

It is due to a tendency to evade responsibility that parents in many instances have allowed their children to stray without proper guidance, and in straying, commit thousands of crimes which send so many of our boys and girls yearly into prison." ¶

Last Saturday there was an editorial in the "Church Section" of The Deseret News which had to do with the example of parents to children in regard to the drinking habit. This editorial indicated that the great majority of drinking parents have drinking children, and the great majority of non-drinking parents have non-drinking children. It was based upon a study made by one of the large colleges in the eastern part of the United States. The editorial goes on: ¶

The example of parents and its effect upon children is not at all limited to the use of liquor. It enters every other phase of the child's life. ¶

Have you seen many children who were converted to prayer, for instance, who had parents who never prayed? . . . ¶

Have you seen many children who are regular Church attenders whose parents never come? There are some, it is true, and they are to be commended most highly for it. But such are in the minority. ¶

And when you find parents who criticize the practices and officers of the Church, do you find a tendency in the children to do likewise? ¶

When parents openly express disapproval of the law of tithing in the home, are the children apt to pay tithing? ¶

When father and mother go fishing and hunting or on outings to the canyon on the Sabbath, do the children prefer to remain at home alone and go to Church? ¶

Although parents do not realize it, every act of their lives has its effect upon their children. It is true that many children love higher principles than do their parents, and hold to those principles regardless of what their parents do. Such children are grieved at the weaknesses of their own parents, and wish it were otherwise. Children of that type are made of sterling qualities, and should receive the encouragement of every person in the Church. ¶

And then it concludes, ¶

When the wise man of old said, "Train up a child in the way he should go," he certainly had in mind the power of example on the part of the parents. ¶

Parents, you can encourage or discourage your child's faith and religious activity. By your own acts, you can either promote faith or you can destroy faith. Which will it be? "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God." ¶

May we follow that instruction, is my humble prayer, in Jesus' name. Amen. ¶